514 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



Avhich progress is made. Of the two methods so far proposed for 

 meeting the recognized demand for secondary industrial work, 

 namely, the addition of agricultural courses in ordinary high schools, 

 and the establishment of distinctive agi'icultural high schools serving 

 an area of several counties, the first method, as so far illustrated in 

 certain Nebraska high schools, he did not consider at all adequate 

 to the requirements. The agricultural high school he believed likely 

 to be deficient on the cultural side, unless it duplicates much of the 

 literary work of the ordinary high school. To avoid this undesirable 

 duplication, he favored the institution of strong secondary agricul- 

 tural courses and equipment in connection with existing high schools 

 favorabl}^ situated for serving a large country constituency. A\liere 

 such courses are located in connection with agricultural colleges the 

 speaker believed they should take over a considerable part of the 

 technical agricultural work of secondary grade, thus permitting the 

 strengthening of the purely collegiate work in agriculture; but he 

 did not regard such schools as the proper type for isolated agricul- 

 tural high schools. He believed that the distributed establishment 

 of secondary agricultural schools would ultimately strengthen the 

 support given to the colleges. 



In discussing this paper. Dean Davenport contended that there 

 is no need for the establishment of distinctive agricultural schools 

 for secondary work. He described the public-school men as ready 

 and anxious to introduce agricultural courses, in order to hold the 

 boys who are deserting the ordinary high schools for work which 

 appeals more strongly to their interests. He illustrated his remarks 

 by several successful examples in his own State, and cited the case 

 of Minnesota, with sixty-five high schools applying for the privilege 

 of introducing an agricultural course with State aid when the law 

 permitted only ten, as another emphatic illustration of the trend 

 of public-school sentiment. The task now is to put vocational agri- 

 culture "within walking or riding distance" of every boy on the 

 farm, and he believed the high schools are ready for this expansion. 



E. J. Wickson presented the fourth topic of the programme, on 

 the relation of the agricultural colleges to the solution of rural prob- 

 lems. It was contended that "the truth which our agriculture now 

 most urgently needs is not to be gained by extending investigation 

 in the physical sciences nor in the application of the results to agri- 

 cultural practice, though both are desirable." Research is now 

 needed in rural economics and sociology. Professor Wickson urged, 

 therefore, that the agricultural colleges should broaden their research 

 and instruction in such subjects as economics and social science, and 

 that in universities with agricultural courses these subjects should 

 be treated from an agricultural point of view. 



